LEARNING THE LINGO

The ever-changing English language causes a bit of frustration for Alexander McCall Smith

Alexander McCall Smith just can't stand linguistic impoverishment

Isuspect we all have a private list of linguistic changes on which we have views. How about the territorial aggrandisement of the word ‘like’? Listen to the conversation of people who misuse it, where every second word, more or less, has become like. ‘I was like …’ has become the preferred way of reporting any state of mind, comment or speech. So rather than say ‘I said’ or ‘I felt’ or ‘I thought’, such like-users say things such like (legitimate use) ‘I was like, uh?’

We get what they mean, of course, but it represents remarkable linguistic impoverishment. And of course there is the intrusive ‘like’ which, in extreme cases of likeophilia results in such breathless spoken prose as ‘I need to get like a new like bag for my like shopping …’ And so on. This is verbal tic territory, and it has become a serious linguistic issue.

Then there is the decline of the accusative. The transitional period in language can be hard on the ear, as in the relegation of the accusative pronoun ‘me’.

In strict terms, it is wrong to say ‘They invited you and I to the dance’. They did not. ‘They invited you and me to the dance’. You do not say ‘Pass the book to I’, or at least you do not say that currently. And yet the use of ‘you and I’ in that way has become almost standard and can be heard on the lips of people you might have imagined knew all about the accusative case.

These things are catching, and I suspect in a few years’ time it will become technically acceptable to use expressions such as ‘Here’s something for you and I’. The skies will not fall, of course, as in language terms there is already very little supporting the sky, but the change is awkward for those brought up on the accusative.

A positive aspect of linguistic change, of course, is the new word ‘department’. Neologisms are fascinating and are all the more common in times of rapid technological or social change (i.e. now). Usually they happen because something has happened that requires a new word. To google somebody arose because that’s what people were actually doing, and google is a great word. It is precise, unpretentious, and as useful as another proprietary verb, to hoover.

Googling has also spawned an etiquette. It used to be rude to tell people that you had googled them; nowadays it’s rude not to google somebody, as it implies that they are not worth googling. Googling, by the way, is helpful when you are going to a dinner party and you know nothing about your fellow guests other than their names. In such cases do a preliminary Google search by typing in the name and then the simple search term ‘scandal’. Or possibly ‘recently released’, or something similar. That will enable you to identify in advance the topics from which you should steer clear at the dinner table.

Sometimes new words are deliberately created. Ben Schott, progenitor of Schott’s Miscellany, compiled a remarkable book of German composite nouns that do not actually exist, but should. Mahlneid, literally ‘meal envy’, is an example of a Schottism. That is the word to describe the feeling you experience on seeing the waiter carrying past another diner’s order which looks far nicer than that which you have ordered yourself. Who has not experienced mahlneid in a restaurant? Now you have a word to describe the feeling.

Then there is solastalgia. This word was invented by an Australian professor who wanted to describe the feeling of sadness that comes about when the physical landscape around you is changed too rapidly. He discovered whole communities experiencing solastalgia when hills were removed by strip mining or drought killed their gardens. It is an important and useful word.

Sometimes new words or expressions may be borrowed. One we might take from Botswana is ‘becoming late’. That means ‘to die’, but, like all the euphemisms associated with the inevitable, this is somehow gentler. It is much better than the American ‘passing’.

And how about ‘disferred’? That currently does not exist, but should. It means to prefer something not to happen. In the Savile Club in London there used to be a sign on the breakfast table: ‘Conversation not preferred’. That was clear enough, but was perhaps a bit coy. Conversation disferred is sterner, and more inhibiting.

It would make a good message to put on a lapel button to be worn at parties. Well, not every party, just some.

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I need to get, like, a new like bag for my, like, shopping